Gaming machines which provide players awards in primary or base games are well known. Gaming machines generally require the player to place or make a wager to activate the primary or base game. In many of these gaming machines, the award is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or symbol combination and on the amount of the wager (e.g., the higher the wager, the higher the award). Symbols or symbol combinations which are less likely to occur usually provide higher awards.
Secondary or bonus games are also known in gaming machines. The secondary or bonus games usually provide an additional award to the player. Secondary or bonus games usually do not require an additional wager by the player to be activated. Secondary or bonus games are generally activated or triggered upon an occurrence of a designated triggering symbol or triggering symbol combination in the primary or base game. For instance, a bonus symbol occurring on the payline on the third reel of a three reel slot machine may trigger the secondary bonus game. When a secondary or bonus game is triggered, the gaming machines generally indicates this to the player through one or more visual and/or audio output devices, such as the reels, lights, speakers, video screens, etc. Part of the enjoyment and excitement of playing certain gaming machines is the occurrence or triggering of the secondary or bonus game (even before the player knows how much the bonus award will be). In other words, obtaining a bonus event and a bonus award in the bonus event is part of the enjoyment and excitement for players.
Certain known gaming devices include a display screen in front of a conventional set of reels. In these gaming devices, as the reels spin, the outer surfaces of the reels move closer to and then away from the display screen. In such known gaming devices, it is extremely difficult to provide images which are coordinated with the movement of the outer surfaces of the reels. Each image has to be coordinated with the respective section of the outer surface of the reel as it moves closer to and away from the display screen. This is very time consuming to create or program, and is inefficient to accomplish for a large number of games with different images and different functionality such as in a server based environment.
There is a need to provide further display devices for gaming machines, and in particular, display devices for server based gaming environments.